In Another Time
by embroiderama
Summary: John in Vietnam, Sam and Dean in the present. What’s the connection?


Title: In Another Time

Author: embroiderama

Characters: John, Sam, Dean (gen)

Rating: R

Warnings: violence

Spoilers: none

Word Count:

Disclaimer: None of the Winchesters belong to me, alas.

Summary: John in Vietnam, Sam and Dean in the present. What's the connection?

Notes: Thank you to elanurel and missyjack for their kind beta services. This story was written for spnholidays for elovhee's request for John-in-Vietnam!fic. I'm so sorry the story is late, but it just kept growing.

* * *

The man walked at the head of a line of other men, keeping an even distance between them as they traveled a narrow path through the jungle. Trees drew in close around them, suffocating in their thickness, until they stopped abruptly at the edge of a sluggishly moving stream.

He lifted his hand up beside his head--_Halt_--and then stopped a couple of steps away from a small, wooden footbridge. The ground around the bridge supports looked undisturbed, the bridge itself sound. Vines blooming with red flowers twisted around the foot of the bridge, the stems biting into the wood. The man stepped onto the bridge, and the world exploded into fire and pain and swift movement.

He blacked out for what felt like a second and then woke up choking. He raised his head up and saw red-stained water flowing past him.

"WIN!"

He heard the hoarse shouts from several feet away. _Done fell off the bridge. Just let me get my ass up. _He got his hands under him in the loose baby-shit mud of the stream bed and sat up, but what he saw didn't make any sense. Legs gone. Stumps like raw meat sitting in his lap. Blood pumping out into the piss-warm water of the stream, blooming and swirling into patterns like a painting.

The sky grew dark around him; dusk fell so fucking fast, so fucking fast, even though he'd thought it was still morning. Then his hands slid, losing their purchase in the mud. He breathed in a mouthful of water, and his lungs clutched with pain.

Hands then, lifted his head up out of the water, pressed agony into the ruin of his legs

"Jesus Christ, Win. Jesus fucking Christ."

He thought his head was up out of the water, felt air rushing over his wet lips, but he couldn't get enough air, couldn't breathe, and Jackson's voice sounded far away despite the rough hands he felt on his skin.

Then he couldn't feel the hands anymore, couldn't feel the water, couldn't feel the mud. He turned his head to watch his blood flow past lazily, and he let himself flow with it.

"Sam!"

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. Hands on his shoulders but he pulls away, twists and crashes to his knees, vomiting up lunch and pain and stinking water. He opens his eyes, half expecting to see blood, blood like in his vision, but when he looks up all he sees is his brother's face. His stomach clenches up with sickness again at the resemblance to the face of the man in his vision. Not a man really, but a boy younger than Dean.

"Shit," Sam rasped, wiping his face and sitting back on his heels. "Shit."

"You okay?" Dean's hand rubbed warmth into his back, and he leaned into the comfort.

"Yeah. I--yeah."

"What did you see? Where do we need to go?"

"I--" Sam tried to figure out the vision, tried to get his thoughts together. "I don't understand."

"What do you mean?"

"I saw--" And this was the last thing he wanted to say to his brother. "I saw Dad."

Dean face froze. "Dad? What?"

Sam tried to get his breathing under control and met the intense look in Dean's eyes.

"I thought you only saw people dying."

Sam nodded. "Yeah. I don't get it man, but that's what I saw. But it wasn't like--it wasn't now."

"No shit."

"No, I mean, it was a long time ago. Dean, I think he was in Vietnam."

* * *

The vision had struck in the parking lot outside their motel room, so Dean hooked his hands under Sam's arms and drew him to his feet. Sam covered his face with one hand, rubbing his forehead, as Dean supported him for the short walk to their room. By the time they got inside, Sam was walking on his own. Dean watched him cross the room to his bed, where he slumped down to sit with his head in both hands.

Dean filled up a cup of water from the tap in the bathroom and grabbed a couple of Advil from the first aid kit. He sat down on his bed across from Sam and put the water and pills down on the table between the beds.

"Hey, you okay in there?"

"Yeah," Sam rasped, his voice sounding wrecked. He raised his head and reached for the glass of water, taking a few sips and then just breathing for a minute before swallowing the pills.

"What did you see? Are you sure it was Dad?"

Sam nodded slightly. "Yeah, it was him. He--" Sam looked up to meet Dean's gaze. "He looked so much like you, man. But younger. Really young."

"He was seventeen when he went to Basic."

"I didn't know," Sam sighed, looking down. "I guess I never asked."

"Sammy, what did you see?" He hated to push Sam, but he had to know what they were facing.

"He, uh, he was walking through the jungle. They came to a little bridge, and he stepped on it first. It just…blew up. A mine, I guess."

"Shit."

"Yeah. He landed in the water, both of his legs just…gone." Sam wrapped his hands around his own thighs, and Dean swallowed, sick at the implication. "There was so much blood in the water. He never had a chance."

Dean shook his head and stood up, pacing away from Sam and then back. "What the fuck are we supposed to do about this? Something that happened--more like didn't happen--thirty-five fucking years ago? How are we supposed to fight that?"

"I don't know." Sam sounded defeated, and that just increased Dean's anger at the situation.

"These visions of yours. Man, I don't fuckin' get it. It's like the universe is screwing with us just for kicks."

"We've gotta stop this, Dean."

"I know."

"I mean, I don't know how this works. I don't know what would happen--"

"I KNOW, I know." Dean paced the room again. "Fuck, I know," he repeated quietly now. "I think I know somebody who can help us."

* * *

In North Carolina, with fourteen hours of hard driving behind them, Dean stepped out of the car and watched Sam unfold himself from the passenger sear. The house in front of him looked about the same--yellow painted porch on a blue house. Bushes that would flower in the springtime grew in the front yard; wind chimes and sun catchers hung from the top of the porch, swaying and twirling in the breeze that blew through the trees next to the house. As they reached the porch steps, the front door opened, and a woman stepped outside.

Light red hair shot through with gray fell loose past her shoulders, and her dress--long, loose layers of sheer blue cotton--caught the breeze, clinging to her tall, slim figure. "Dean Winchester! I thought I recognized your daddy's car."

"Hey, Karen. Sorry for just showing up like this. Didn't have your number."

"It's okay. I told you, you're always welcome."

"Thanks," Dean nodded, ignoring Sam's curious stare. "We need your help."

"Well, come on inside." She looked over at Sam. "This must be your brother."

Dean followed Karen through the door, holding it open for him. "Yeah, this is Sam."

"Pleased to meet you. Can I get you boys anything? Iced tea?"

"Thank you," Sam replied, smiling tensely. "That would be nice."

* * *

When Karen returned with three tall glasses of pale red tea, they all sat down in her sun-filled living room. Sam sipped it, and the taste reminded him of California.

"You had any more trouble?" Dean asked. "Like before?"

"No. No, I'm much more careful now."

"Trouble?" Sam tilted his head to the side, curious about what kind of case Dean had worked here.

"I'm a practitioner of astral travel. I've studied for nearly forty years now, and I teach when I find the right student." She looked down, rubbing the top layer of her skirt between her fingers. "I made a mistake, chose the wrong student. He opened himself up to dark powers, and he let in spirits that we couldn't control. A friend put me in touch with John, and he and Dean got rid of the spirits and helped me set up better wards on the house."

"Astral travel?" Sam looked over at Dean, watched him nod at the unspoken question. "Wow."

"So, how is John?"

Sam saw Dean's jaw go tight, the look in his eyes distant. "He died," Sam replied quietly. "About three months ago."

"Oh." Karen put a hand to her chest. "Oh, I'm so sorry. He and I had our…differences, but he was a good man."

"I'm, uh, surprised he stayed long enough for you to get to know him."

"Yeah, that was my fault," Dean answered. "I got hit in the head by some shit the spirits sent flying through the air, and Karen wouldn't let us leave until I got over the concussion."

"Well, you needed to heal, and I didn't think it would happen with you driving around in that black muscle car of yours."

Sam thought she was wrong, that the Impala was exactly what they needed to heal sometimes, but he just sipped at the tea.

"Now, I know you didn't come here for a social visit. What's going on?"

"I know you said you could travel, out of your body, to other places," Dean explained, sounding uncomfortable with the concept. "Does it work for time, too? For the past?"

Karen stared at Dean for a moment and then nodded slowly. "It's possible, but it's not easy, and I don't recommend it."

"We don't exactly have a lot of other choices here."

"What's going on? What do you need to do?"

Dean didn't reply, just looked over at Sam.

"I can't help you if you don't tell me. I won't."

Dean gave Sam a tiny, tight nod, and Sam turned back to look at Karen. "I have visions. Visions of people dying."

"They always come true," Dean added. "Unless we stop them, change things."

Sam looked down but felt her watching him.

"That's a powerful gift. And a painful one, I think."

"I had a vision of Dad dying, but it wasn't--it wasn't what happened to him. It was a long time ago, before we were born. Before he met our mother."

"When he was in the war?"

Sam nodded and watched as she closed her eyes.

"I lost so many friends in that war. Boys from high school. Boys I grew up with."

"I'm sorry."

"Like you said, it was a long time ago. But that's one of the reasons I was surprised to get on as well as I did with your daddy. He joined up by choice, wasn't even drafted. And still such a military man, even all those years after." Karen shook her head and gave Sam a small smile. "I could tell he had a lot of darkness in him, but he had a good heart, too."

"So will you help us?" Dean interrupted. Sam could see in the tight lines of his body that Dean couldn't take much more of this conversation. "What Sam saw--we gotta stop it."

"I will. At least, I'll try." She stood up, the layers of her skirt falling down around her ankles at she rose. "Rest for a while. We'll work together this evening. And then in the morning--" She looked at Sam. "You'll travel."

"Wait a minute," Dean argued. "He's not going by himself. I've got to watch his back."

"You will. Sam will need somebody he trusts to ground him, to watch over his body while he walks through time. Now rest. We'll talk more later."

She walked down the hall, but Dean didn't look ready to let the matter go. "I don't like it, Sam. I don't want you going out there by yourself."

"I'm not sure I want to go at all, but I don't think we've got any better options." Sam sighed and slumped back onto the soft futon couch. "Besides, like she said, if I'm not going to be in my body, there's nobody I trust more than you to, uh, housesit."

Dean nodded, still looking unhappy about the plan. Sam couldn't blame him, but he was too tired to talk about it anymore. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, letting the music of the chimes outside draw him off into a light slumber.

* * *

Dean closed his eyes after he watched Sam doze off, but he didn't let himself sleep. He was still wired from the long drive, and he had too much to think about. He wished he'd taken the time to learn more about this whole astral travel deal. Between doing the job and recovering from it, he and Dad had spent a week here with Karen back in '03, but he hadn't picked up on much.

While they prepared for the job, he had just focused on the spirits that had invaded her student and the house itself--what they were and how to get rid of them. Afterwards, well, he'd been unconscious, sick or asleep for most of it. Dad was the one who'd spent time with Karen, and if he'd passed those days learning how to astral travel, he'd never shared that knowledge with Dean.

Dean heard light footsteps behind him and turned to see Karen motioning for him to follow her.

"I've got some dinner ready, if you're hungry."

"Oh, yeah, thanks. Let me just go wake up Sam."

He started to turn back, but her hand on his arm stilled him. "I'm sorry, but he needs to fast. It'll make it easier for him to accomplish the travel tomorrow."

"Well, I don't feel right about eating if he's not. I'll hold off, too."

Karen shook her head. "No, you need to eat. Your job will be to ground Sam, and the food will help ground you. Connect you with your body and with the Earth."

Dean knew he must have let a skeptical expression onto his face when she laughed quietly and reached a hand up to touch his cheek. "I know it sounds like bullshit, sweetie, but it's true. Anyway, there's no need for you both to be hungry. Come on."

Dean followed her into the kitchen and sat down in front of a huge bowl of soup and a plate piled with thick slices of dark bread. The soup was delicious, the bread fresh, and Dean was glad enough for home-cooked food that he didn't even care that it was probably vegetarian.

After they ate, Dean woke Sam and they met Karen upstairs in the room where she worked with her students. When Dean had last seen the room, it had looked like a bear had attacked it--pictures knocked from the walls, furniture broken, scratches gouged into the floor. Now, the room was clean, the bare wood floor smooth. A lingering fragrance of incense hung in the air, rather than the stink of sulfur.

A dim lamp glowed from a corner of the room, and Karen lit a couple of candles and placed them on a low table near the center of the room. She waved Dean and Sam toward a group of cushions on the floor. "Take off your shoes and sit down."

Dean sat down, folding his legs up on the cushion. He felt like an idiot, but then Sam's boney knee bumped his, and he knew that at least he wasn't alone. Karen arranged herself on the floor in front of them.

"Sam, you just close your eyes and breathe for right now. Have you ever learned to meditate before?"

"Yeah, long time ago, but yeah."

Dean knew Sam was thinking about Pastor Jim, about the weeks they'd stayed there over the years. Dean had never had the patience to sit for Jim's lessons, preferring to get outside and practice with the weapons or just run. Sam, on the other hand, had taken to the lessons well, spending long, quiet mornings sitting with Jim.

"Okay, good. Just observe your breath and relax while I work with Dean for a minute." She turned to Dean and then stood up and returned with a few small pillows. She touched his right knee and arranged two pillows under it, one under the left. Dean felt more comfortable immediately--that knee had never been right since he'd dislocated it hunting a chupacabra his senior year of high school.

"Okay, remember, you'll need to ground Sam, give him a connection to this plane. You're very grounded in your body naturally, but I want you to connect down with the Earth better so you have more to give Sam."

Dean shifted on the cushions, feeling like an idiot again, but giving to Sam--he would give anything to Sam. And they had to do this. "Okay, he murmured. "How?"

It was more embarrassing than he would have guessed. She talked him through sitting up straight and imagining himself as a tree, roots pushing through the floor and into the ground beneath them. It felt incredibly silly, but then, after a while, he started to feel different. Solid. Rooted.

He paid attention to that feeling, only half-listening as Karen worked with Sam.

* * *

Sam grinned to himself as he listened to Karen talk to Dean about branches and sap and roots. He knew Dean would be irritated by the flower-child language, but even with his eyes closed he could feel Dean go still beside him.

"Okay, Sam. You're doing great. Now I want you to imagine light all around you."

She led him through a meditation, and as time passed he felt himself becoming lighter, felt like he was moving somehow out of synch with himself, moving away from the room, away from Dean and Karen.

"Sam? Sam it's time to come back." Karen's voice sounded like it came from a ways away. Another room, down the hall, outside the house. "Just think about being in your body. Feel that you're breathing and breathe a little deeper." He breathed and felt his lungs expand in his chest; her voice sounded louder, closer. "Good. Good, try to move your fingers and toes a little."

He did, and he felt his fingers moving around his legs, his toes brushing against the fabric of his socks. Still, the movements felt awkward, disconnected.

"Sam," Karen asked calmly. "Where are you? How do you feel?"

"I feel kinda…funny." His voice sounded tinny in his own ears. "Like my head is higher than it should be."

"Okay, you need to get grounded. Put your hand on Dean, honey. He's right next to you."

Sam lifted his hand, feeling it float in space, and put it down on Dean's warm thigh. Immediately, he felt something he could only define as _home_. Something within him slid down, finding its place, and the weird tingling in his hands and chest subsided into a deep stillness. Sam opened his eyes and looked over at Dean to find his brother watching him intently.

"So," Dean smirked, "You gonna keep feeling me up or have you had enough for tonight?"

Sam lifted his hand from Dean's leg and smacked him on the shoulder. "Jerk."

"Bitch." But when Dean reached an arm around Sam's shoulders to help him stand, he didn't let go, long past the time when Sam felt steady on his feet. They went to bed after that, Sam exhausted but still struggling to fall asleep with his stomach empty and begging for food.

One thought ran on a loop through his brain, and as the quiet flowed around them in Karen's guest room, Sam spoke across the gap between their beds. "I keep thinking about Mom."

"Huh?" Dean's voice sounded muffled with the edge of sleep.

"If Dad had died in Vietnam, she never would have met him. Never would have had--" _Me._ "Us. Maybe she would still be--"

"Stop it, Sam. We can't know. We just gotta do--" Dean's voice shook. "We can't know that."

Dean turned over noisily, and Sam lay awake long after Dean's breathing lapsed into familiar soft snores.

* * *

Sam woke up to the dip of the mattress next to him and a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, you awake?"

"Mmm, I am now." Sam rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and looked up at Dean. "What time is it?"

"Eight-thirty. Karen wants to get this going soon so that we don't have to starve you for longer than necessary." Dean grinned, but Sam saw the nervousness in his eyes.

"I guess that means I don't get breakfast?"

"Sorry, dude. We saved you some pancakes for later though, and they're seriously good."

"Bacon?"

"Not a chance. I bet she'll make you some eggs, though, if you turn that hungry puppy dog look on her."

Sam snorted and sat up. "I need a shower first."

"Okay. Come into the kitchen after. She's got some weird tea she wants you to drink."

"Great."

Twenty minutes later, showered and dressed in clean clothes, Sam felt more awake and less irritable than he had when Dean woke him. In the kitchen, Karen motioned him to a seat at the table, which was cleared of food, and handed him a steaming mug of strange-smelling tea. Under the heavy sweetness of honey, the tea tasted bitter. Sam just swallowed it down, glad to have something warm in his stomach.

The sugar hit his system, and he put the empty mug down on the table. "Okay, let's do this."

* * *

Karen had arranged a thin futon mattress in the middle of the room they had practiced in before, cushions at either end extending its length and a small pillow at one end of the futon itself. Mid-morning sunlight filtered in through the bamboo window shades.

"Sam, you go lay down with your head on the pillow. Dean, sit down on the cushion by his head and just breathe for a minute until I help you get comfortable."

Dean sat down and watched Sam arrange himself on the futon, legs propped on the cushion at the opposite end. Sam's face looked strange from this perspective, his body even longer-looking than usual, and when Sam opened his eyes to see Dean looking at him they exchanged nervous half-smiles.

Dean wished more than anything that this were a normal hunt, something that he could attack with shotguns and salt, something he could kick in the ass, something that could bleed and burn and be buried. Didn't feel right, sitting on a silk-covered pillow, waiting for Sammy to walk away from his body. Hoping his brother could keep their father from becoming another broken body in a black bag, back before either of them was even born.

Dean looked up, startled out of his train of thought, when Karen knelt beside him and helped him arrange the pillows under his knees again. "Okay, now I want you to ground yourself like you did yesterday--deep roots. Once we get started, I don't want you to touch Sam until I tell you it's time. If he's too firmly grounded to you, he won't be able to get where he needs to go."

"Okay." Dean looked back down at Sam and brushed some stray hair out of his eyes. "You be careful. If you think something's wrong, just…come back."

"I will."

"If I end up with a disembodied brother, I'll hunt you down and kick your astral ass."

"I know," Sam replied quietly before shutting his eyes.

Dean took a moment to look at Sam's pale eyelids, vulnerable-seeming from this odd perspective, before closing his own eyes. He imagined pushing down through the floor again, grounding himself as Karen had taught him, and as he felt his connection with the ground solidify, he could feel Sam, too. Not only the physical warmth of his head and shoulders almost in Dean's lap, but something else, something that felt like part of himself

Dean only half-listened to Karen as she talked to Sam in her calm, quiet voice. She said something about breathing and light, rising and floating. When she told Sam to picture what he'd seen in his vision, Dean felt the presence that was Sam go tense and then relax before it--it slipped away.

Dean opened his eyes to see Karen looking at him. His heart began to race at the strange wrongness of Sam here-not-here, but Karen just nodded silently. Dean moved his hands to rest on Sam's still, wide shoulders and closed his eyes again. Focusing on his connection with the ground and with Sam. Working to hold it all together.

* * *

Sam followed his breath, followed the winding path of Karen's voice. He felt tired and tense, but then he realized that he could sense Dean behind him. With that realization, he relaxed, exhaling, and felt himself slip away from the floor, away from his body just slightly, as he'd done the night before in practice.

He could still hear Karen, though more faintly now. Following her words, he envisioned the place from his vision, the jungle where he'd seen his father die. He imagined the scene as if it were a film, and in his head he rolled it back, back to before the bridge exploded into blood, back along the path the young men walked until the dim evening brightened into noon and faded into the haze of morning.

Sam saw the boy with the tired brown eyes step way from his fellow soldiers to guard the perimeter. At his thought, Sam's scroll through time stopped, and the jungle came into focus. He could feel himself there, the muggy heat seeping into his pores, but he could also feel Dean and through him the room in North Carolina where his body waited.

Sam stayed still for a moment, feeling like a balloon tethered to the ground by Dean. He pushed down his fear, knowing that Dean was no simple string that could snap or untie, and made himself move through the land around him. He expected to trip in the thick undergrowth, but as he moved smoothly toward the lone Marine he realized that his feet just slipped through the vegetation--incorporeal.

For that reason, too, his approach went unheard by Lance Corporal John Winchester. When Sam called out quietly, "John," the young man spun quickly, his M-16 suddenly in Sam's face.

Sam stepped back. Even knowing that the weapon couldn't touch him, that the bullets would only go through him and harmlessly lodge in the trees behind him, Sam wanted more space between himself and the fierce look on his father's face. The anger and determination were so familiar that they hurt, but the fear and youth added to the expression cut him even more.

"Who the fuck are you and where the fuck did you come from?" John growled, not shifting the rifle an inch.

"My name's Sam Winchester." Sam spoke calmly, keeping his eyes fixed on his father's unblinking glare. "And I'm not really here."

"What are--" John clenched his jaw and jabbed the gun forward. "How did some motherfucking hippy bastard like you get this deep in country?"

"Listen, I know it's weird, but I've got to talk to you. I don't have much time, I--"

"Hands up!" John barked. "Get your fucking hands up away from your fucking body!"

Sam sighed and held his arms out at his side, watching as John stepped closer and reached out. Sam thought he ought to feel something strange as his father's hand moved through the space where his hip appeared to be, but instead he felt nothing at all.

"Jesus Christ!" John's voice shook as he yanked his hand back and stood staring back at Sam. "Jesus, I'm cracking up."

"No, you're not. I'm sorry, but you've got to listen to me."

"Whatever you are," John continued, sounding years younger than he had a minute before, "You look awful familiar."

"You always told me I looked like your brother Bill."

John shook his head, looking confused. "But Billy's only fifteen, and you're-- Oh, God, why am I talking to you? I'm fucking crazy."

Sam ached to reach out and grasp his father's shoulders, shoulders that were far slimmer than they'd ever been in Sam's memory. "_Listen! _ We don't have time for this. You're going to die!"

"What?" John looked shocked that this figment of his imagination was suddenly yelling at him.

"This evening, today, you're going to be out on a patrol with five other men. You'll get to a bridge over a stream, and if you step on it--it's going to explode, and you're going to die."

John shook his head again. "Wouldn't even set foot on a bridge without checking it was safe."

"You do check it out. It looks safe, but it's not. It's rigged."

John looked down. "Why am I even listening? I ain't slept right in four days, and now I'm seeing crazy shit. My own mind tryin' to make me afraid." He looked back up, glaring at Sam again. "Just shut up! Shut up!"

"I can't! Listen, I know it sounds crazy, but if you die, I die, and a lot of other people die. I don't want to die, so you have to _listen_ to me, Dad!"

John choked out a laugh, and Sam realized what he'd said. "You're crazier than I am, and you don't even fuckin' exist."

Sam felt a tug in his chest and sensed Dean more strongly than before, felt the jungle grow less real around him. Panic swept through him at the thought of being pulled away.

"No, please. Please. Just, when you see the bridge, look for the vines, vines with little red flowers growing around the base of the supports. Just test it, throw something heavy on it--anything, try and trigger the mine."

Sam saw John's eyes widen and knew he was fading. He wanted to stay more than anything, wanted to see his father walk away from that stream alive, on two solid legs, wanted to be near him for just a moment more. The pull toward Dean grew stronger, impossible to resist without tearing himself up inside, and all he could do was call out again, "Please!"

The last thing he saw before the jungle faded entirely was his father's head nodding yes, yes, yes.

* * *

Dean didn't know how much time had passed when he felt something change in Sam's body. He looked at Karen, who sat silently across the room. "There's something wrong."

She walked closer and knelt at Sam's side, sweeping her hand just over Sam's chest and stomach. "He's breathing too slowly. I think…" She closed her eyes and appeared to focus internally for a moment before she spoke again. "He's sending too much of his energy into the past, energy he needs to maintain himself here. We need to get him back."

Dean swallowed, unconsciously digging his fingers more deeply into the hollows of Sam's shoulders. "What do I do?"

"Ground yourself the best you possibly can."

Dean nodded and concentrated on the image of his roots pushing down through the floor, down into the ground. Down and down and down and down. "I've got roots going down to China, I swear it," he whispered harshly, "down to fucking Vietnam."

"Good, keep them that way; hold onto him and call to him."

"Sam, Sam, come on."

"Not just with your voice, Dean. Reach out through that connection you have with him and call him back. Just try it, and you'll know how."

Dean felt his need for Sam and called out. Called out from his heart the way he'd wanted to when Sam was away from him at Stanford. Called out and reached out and felt Sam drawing closer, felt the shoulders under his hands jerk and shudder as Sam gasped in a deep breath and released it with a dry, ragged sob.

"No," Sam whispered. "Too soon."

Dean relaxed at the sight of his brother's hazel eyes, awake and aware below him. "Sorry, Sammy, you start forgetting to breathe, it's time to come home."

Sam frowned but then sighed and nodded. "I just wish I knew if it worked."

"What do you say we go find some family pictures and see if we're disappearing?"

Sam smiled tiredly and pushed himself up onto his elbows. Dean unfolded his legs and stood up, wincing as his knee protested at being kept still for so long.

"You boys come out to the kitchen when you're ready, have something to eat."

Dean had forgotten that Karen was still in the room. "Thanks. We'll be right with you."

She smiled and left them alone.

Dean looked down at Sam, who was pale beneath his tan but otherwise looking about as normal as he ever did. "You good to stand up?"

"Think so." Sam stretched a hand up toward Dean and heaved himself up off the floor with Dean's help, but he wobbled and swayed forward as soon as he reached his full height.

"Whoa, there." Dean grabbed onto Sam and pulled him closer to steady him. Sam relaxed into the hold for a breath and then pulled away, his legs solid beneath him.

"I could really use a snack, man."

Dean grinned. "Well, let's go get it." He kept his hand on Sam's back as they left the room together.

* * *

After they ate, Dean went outside to give the car a check-up, and Sam slumped down on Karen's sofa. He knew he should just accept that since they were still here, since nothing seemed to have changed, that he must have saved his father. He couldn't stop thinking about how John had looked--so young, so tired and dirty, angry and scared and strong.

He was startled out of his contemplations by the ringing of his cell phone. He fumbled it out and answered. "Yeah? Hello?"

"Boy, what the hell you been doing?"

_Missouri._ "Uh, why?"

"Because I was minding my own business when suddenly I get hit over the head with the message I have to call you and tell you something."

"Tell me something?" Sam felt his lungs clench up with the fear that she was about to tell him something he didn't want to know. "Tell me what?"

"Something your daddy told me the first time he came to see me, the time I told him the truth about what's really out there in the world." Her voice was gentler now, but Sam didn't know whether that was good news or not.

"What did he tell you?"

"He told me that the only reason he wasn't turning his behind around and walking out of my house was something that he saw a long time ago. He told me that some kind of a spirit or apparition came to him and saved his life. Didn't tell me no details, just that. Now, why would I need to tell you this story right at this particular time, Sam Winchester?"

Sam forced out a shaky laugh and felt tired, relieved tears flooding his eyes. "I'll, uh, I'll tell you another time."

* * *

THE END


End file.
